


no more ace to play;

by bubleboobo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, galra keith but galra is a kingdom not species, klangst, knight au no one asked for, knight lance, plot heavy, the title is an abba lyric because why not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubleboobo/pseuds/bubleboobo
Summary: When a new star knight arrives out of nowhere, and steals everything good in your life, you really ought to hate him. Which is exactly what Lance did. He hated everything about Keith.Or at least that's what he kept telling himself.





	

“Blue! Darling, where are you?”

The fog made it hard for him to see anything that was farther than two meters, the snow reached Lance’s ankles, making it harder for him to walk. The damned snow, he liked it 99% of the time; it was pretty and fun and it gave everything a touch of magic, especially for someone that had grown in a warm place like him. A lifetime of hearing about snow and he was now surrounded by it, which made it very dream-like. Yes, snow was beautiful, at least until it made it hard for you to walk. Then it became annoying, and Lance’s nose was so cold it felt like it was about to fall off.

“Come to me, beautiful. It’s already supper time!”

The trees around him were dry, and the leaves were pretty much gone. But they were still so many and so tall it made it hard for Lance to see the sky. The forest was dark, and it wasn’t even _that_ late. The sun was still there, probably about to set. Somewhere… Lance couldn’t see it but he knew it was there. Waiting for him and Blue.

“Please, Blue. I don’t want to miss dinner today! Hunk said there’d be apple pie for desert. _Apple Pie, Blue!_ You know how much I want this!”

Nothing but silence and the creepy wind blow. Great, no signs of Blue either. He couldn’t go back without her, but it was starting to get pretty damn cold already. Thank Coran for his cloak and scarf, otherwise he was sure his nose would’ve fallen a while ago. He couldn’t help but wish for Hunk’s gloves. They were fingerless, though, so he would never ask Hunk for them. _He was not a godamn fool._ But his fingers felt pretty stiff. As soon as he found Blue, he’d rush to the castle, and straight into his room. He’d take the gloves his mother had made him, all with the silly cat patterns and everything, and his favorite dark blue blanket. It looked ridiculous, Pidge liked to remind him as often as she could, but any ugly colors would be better than the endless white around him right now.

 _Okay, just gotta find her majesty. Easy-peasy._ He thought to himself. Blue had always had a soft spot for him, if anyone could get her back, it was him.

“I’ll give you half my fish when we get home. How ‘bout that?” He said, trying to sound as friendly as possible. He saw a tiny dark spot from the corner of his eye.

“There you are, your majesty!” He said, picking up the tiny cat and touching her small nose with his cold finger. “Thought you could sneak out without _Lancelot The Great_ noticing? I thought you were smarter than that!”

Blue was a big cat but right now she looked smaller, her fur dark and damp with snow. At least she wasn’t trying to run away now, it had all been just a really complicated hide and seek game, and she knew she had lost. _‘Good Kitty’_ , Lance muttered fondly.

Then something catched his eye, as anything would when everything is suddenly not only white.

Through the fog, he could see a dark figure. Short, but not _that_ short. That was definitely _not_ a cat. It looked wide and Lance could see it was moving.

His fleeing instinct became overshowed completely by the overwhelming curiosity, because that was not a wolf, either, nor a deer nor a bear. Lance had a long list of things this thing wasn’t, but the desire to find out what it was was too much.

With Blue in his hands he approached the thing _slowly_. He wasn’t stupid. He had his hand ready on his sword he somehow felt he was going to need before coming to retrieve a cat. The falling snow and thick fog made it hard to identify what was the thing. Once he came close enough he drew out his sword and pointed it at the mysterious creature, not giving it a chance to attack him first. He let a short adrenaline shout and jumped slightly forward, until it finally came to view.

That was _definitely not a cat._

It was actually a person. A person on their knees, appearing shorter than a person would thanks to that, and with an old cloak, making their shadow look wider than it actually was.

It was a person with long unkempt dark hair covering parts of their face, with several damp layers of dirty clothing looking both warm, by how thick they were, and cold at the same time (they were wet by snow after all). It was a person with huge, dark eyes glaring at him and with a cloth covering their mouth.

It was a person, and as soon as Lance’s brain registered that, he lowered his sword. Don’t ask him _why_ , it was a stupid decision after all. The person had their hand gripping a dagger and looked absolutely murderous.

They went for Lance’s neck with it, too. Lance thanked his reflexes, something he was known for, since he was able to dodge the stranger’s blow. The person let out a deep, angry grunt, it sounded weird, as if their voice hadn’t been used in days. They glared at Lance with venom eyes.

 _They also looked absolutely exhausted._ This theory was proven after about four seconds of looking at each other intensely. Even though this person looked completely ready to kill someone, their frown faltered- their eyes became gentler and they looked disoriented.

 _“Help me.”_ They said, with a throaty voice, and they fell on the snow, closing their eyes.

Lance was still recovering his breath as the stranger fell to the ground. What had just happened? This person had just tried to kill him and then passed out in the snow.

In retrospection, those seemed like red flags one would normally want to avoid. But this wasn’t by any means a normal situation and Lance was kindhearted. A fool, _sometimes_. Mildly annoying, _maybe_. The class clown, _on a good day_. But kindhearted? _Always_. His mother took pride on his son for that, and Lance was never one to disappoint his mother.

Lance knew he wasn’t the best knight to ever exist (that title probably goes to Shiro), but he knew he would never let anyone to die frozen and alone in the woods.

“Alright, okay. Time to do the right thing” he says to Blue, who looks at him, expressionless. “Good time to only have a tiny kitten with me.” He muttered as he knelt next to the person. They were about Lance’s size, and really skinny. They probably hadn’t eaten much while in the woods. But then again Lance was not brawny like Hunk or Shiro. He had his muscles but it wouldn’t be easy to carry someone all the way to the castle.

 _Okay, here we go._ Lance raised the stranger’s arm and put it around his shoulder, holding their wrist ( _was that a fingerless glove?_ ), then he wrapped his other arm on their waist and counted to three. As he lifted them both, he noticed this mystery person was way heavier than they looked.

He turned to look at Blue with a sigh. “I’m going to have to trust you to follow me. I can’t really carry you too right now.” He said, and started walking, dragging the other through the snow on the floor.

Blue followed swiftly behind, following the trail the stranger’s feet were leaving.

“Great.” Lance complained to no one in particular, his voice echoing in the otherwise silent path. He was going considerably slow and his shoulders were starting to ache. “They send me to get the cat and I bring a scruffy, disoriented, unconscious wanderer. _Just great_ ”

-

_Keith. That was his name._

_That scruffy, disoriented wanderer’s name was Keith._

Lance was sitting across from Hunk on the infirmary room, waiting. There was a fire on the fireplace and some food on the table between the two. Blue was lying on his lap, asleep. He wished he could go to sleep too. It was pretty late and the snow storm had only gotten worse since he came. Both him and Hunk had heavy blankets over themselves. His eyelids were getting heavier each minute, and the meal only served to make him even sleepier. But he couldn’t leave just yet.

On the corner of the room laid the mystery man from before. Allura and Shiro were with him, checking his condition.  Apparently, he had a high fever and frostbite, and would’ve died had he not been found. At least that’s what Allura had told them, when she sent Coran for even more blankets. He had been unconscious all the way to the castle, and a while after that. He had only woken up about an hour ago, but hadn’t said much, other than his name and the fact that he had been lost in the forest. Apparently he did not know where he was, or who he was talking to.

“I’m princess Allura of Altea.” Allura introduced herself politely. “And my paladin, Sir Lance, found you and brought you here.” Lance looked up when he heard his name from where he was, a few steps behind Allura and Shiro, next to Hunk and Coran.

The wanderer, Keith, was looking at him, frowning. Lance felt his body tense under his judging gaze. _After all, this Keith had tried to slice his throat with his dagger_. They looked at each other for a beat, and then Keith turned, dismissively, to Allura, who kept talking.

 _Not even a thank you._ Lance thought, relaxing now that the other’s eyes were not on him anymore. He frowned. _He had saved this guy’s ass, is he just going to ignore that?_ He had barely looked at him. Just who did he think he was?

Now he and Hunk were only waiting for Allura to tell them they could leave. At least they had their dinner while they waited.

“Man, this pie is exactly what gave me motivation to come back.” Lance said as he savored his third slice of blueberry pie. He let Blue lick his fingers when he finished, looking toward Hunk, who was looking at the small group on the corner, with a thoughtful expression. “Hunk?”

Hunk turned around, as if snapping out of a deep conversation with himself. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, Lance. I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Well,” Hunk said as he served himself some cider. “The mystery man you just brought to the castle, maybe?”

“Oh, yeah.” Lance said, sinking on his seat, rolling his eyes. “ _That_.”

“Who do you think he is? Or, where is he from?” Hunk asked. “He has barely said anything about himself since he got here.”

“He’s probably some moron from a village nearby that got into the forest without knowing how to get back.”

“But did you see his clothing?” Hunk said, pointing discreetly to the wet clothes on a chair next to the bed.  Allura had given Keith some spare sleeping robes. “I don’t know… Do you think it’s a good idea to have him here?”

Lance sat up straighter, careful to not wake the tiny cat on his lap. “Hunk, I get what you’re saying. But I think you may be overreacting.” He said, looking tiredly at his friend. “After all, he’s ill and alone, and all he had on him was a tiny dagger.” _That almost killed me, but that’s normal, he had scared Keith._

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Hunk asked, unimpressed. A that moment, Allura turned to them.

“Paladins, you may go now. I think our guest is going to be fine with Coran’s proper care.” She said with a tired smile, and then turned again, to say something to Shiro. Keith was silently looking between the two of them, with tired, stoic eyes.

Hunk sighed. “I don’t know, Lance. I think I’m staying at least for tonight.”

Lance sighed, annoyed. “How unnecessary, Hunk.” He stood up, waking Blue, who grumpily moved to curl on the seat next to Lance. “Do what you want, I’ll go to sleep.”

Lance walked to the door, and turned before leaving. “Good night, everyone. _Princess_.” He bowed his head lightly, and then left.  

That night, he didn’t hear Hunk go to his room. Their rooms were next to each other, and Hunk’s door creaked every time it opened, so Lance would always notice when he was there. It also helped the fact that he couldn’t sleep that night (nothing to do with those intense eyes back at the infirmary). But Hunk only came to his room until next morning.

Lance considered himself a great friend, but also really enjoyed the joy that comes with saying _‘I told you so’,_ so he pertly got out of bed, even without his lack of sleep, and pompously entered Hunk’s bedroom without even changing his night robes. “Morning, my dear friend? How did your excessive plan from last night went?”

Lance expected to find Hunk tired and grumpy from lack of sleep, and with a running nose maybe, since the infirmary was in one of the towers and was perhaps the coldest room in the castle; which was a terrible mistake made by the designer of the castle ( _thanks, Coran’s great grandfather_ ), and something someone really ought to do something about.

And, well, Hunk did have a running nose. He was using that pretty golden handkerchief of his to clean his nose. But, to Lance’s surprise, he also looked quite fresh and happy.

“Oh, it was _great_ , thanks for asking!” Hunk said, smiling mockingly. He already knew how much Lance enjoyed being right. “I actually had a lot of fun!”

“What?” Lance said, surprised. Sleeping on the infirmary was awful, he’d done it a few times in his life. It was so cold and uncomfortable, and there were lots of weird noises. “How? Did you talk to Keith?”

“I did!” Hunk said, with a genuine smile this time. He was looking for something on his drawers. “He’s pretty cool! We talked and it turns out he’s interested in building things, too! In fact, I just came back to look for some of my _babies_!” He said, opening the chest he kept under his bed, and taking some of his babies (gadgets Hunk liked to build, and that could either have very practical uses or be toys made for his own amusement).

 _Are you kidding me?_ Lance muttered as he watched Hunk putting his many items on a bag. He raised a brow. “So he’s just as much of a nerd as you are.”

“He’s nice, Lance.”  Hunk said with a sigh, looking at his friend. He began walking out of the door. “ _Oh_ , and by the way? We’re going to work on this model we discussed last night, so I won’t be able to spar with you today. Hope you don’t mind.”

Lance, still in the room, turned to yell outraged after Hunk, on the hallway. “Are you serious?!”

“Sorry!” Hunk said, already going upstairs.  

“Traitor!” Lance yelled back, but Hunk was already gone.

 _Stupid Keith_. Makes Lance drag him all the way here, only to steal his Hunk? Lance was salty. No one could do that, Hunk was _his_ best friend and _his_ sparring partner.

 _Who does that asshole think he is?_ Lance wondered, not for the first, and _certainly_ not for the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please excuse my english, i'm not a native speaker.


End file.
